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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26156635">Yet There With My Love I'm Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/clunion68/pseuds/clunion68'>clunion68</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dorks in Love, Engagement, F/M, Gentle Kissing, Good God, Hands, Heavy Feels, Holding Hands, Home, I WEEP, Intimacy, Kissing, Light Angst, Marriage Proposal, Mild Language, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Soulmates, Stargazing, Sunrises, True Love, Ugh, ah love, god the HANDS, it's all about the hands, it's all very.... classic romance literature, it's too much i can't, like i said it's really about just like eyes and hands and like thoughts, like low key this whole thing is inspired by a scene from anna karenina so, like there's literally a scene inspired by anna karenina, oh man, some things to note, they're just so.... soft, woof where to begin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:42:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,695</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26156635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/clunion68/pseuds/clunion68</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They had leapt together towards the sea, and maybe they would spend their whole lives in the plummet. But they would spend it together, hand in hand. They would spend it holding each other close and calling it home. </p><p>_______________________________</p><p>Katara and Zuko take another step in building the home they've found in each other. </p><p>(What I'm saying is, neither of them can sleep and they both want to propose first thing in the morning, and it's awkward and it's human and it's just two people very much in love feeling a little scared to tell each other what they've already been saying to each other for years)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katara/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>128</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey you know what?”</p><p>She brushed her thumb over his. They kept their eyes on the stars.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I think I finally like spicy food.”</p><p>He had a laugh like a struck match.</p><p>“I’m serious!”</p><p>“Great. No that’s great,” if she would have stopped moving her thumb over his he might have forgotten her hand was still even there, “congratulations, it only took you, what? Almost a decade?”</p><p>“Just saying, I didn’t particularly hate dinner tonight.”</p><p>“I’ll, uh, pass that along to the chef.”</p><p>She had a laugh like rocks in the tide.</p><p>They didn’t know the time, only that the sun had set at some point and would rise at some point too. They didn’t know really how long they had been sitting out on the balcony hand in hand talking about their days, the ones near and far, the ones that they had lived as strangers, as (not that it was <em>funny</em> funny, but it was a little funny) adversaries, as friends, as colleagues and confidants and lifesavers and lovers and nearly anything else two people under the sun could possibly be to each other. Too often the days were too long and the nights were too short, and if some sleep had to be sacrificed for the sake of some new inside joke or some deep revelation, or just one more kiss, then sleep be damned.</p><p>Nights there were usually clear, rarely cold. Still, a shiver went up the spine of the girl forged by frozen land and sea.</p><p>
  <em>If you think about it, each star is a sun, right? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Right. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Okay, so at night there’s thousands of suns, millions of them. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>What are you saying? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You could be more of a night person. </em>
</p><p>The nights were clear and warm and they had had so many like this one before. And yet, when he looked at her he felt like he was standing hundreds of feet above the sea and any moment it could all drop. The ground, his feet, his stomach, his heart. She hadn’t made him nervous in years. He wondered if anyone truly understood the heart, if anyone – any of the great scientific and medical minds at his disposal – could explain why the heart could be both so heavy it sunk like hot iron through ice and so light he’d have to tie a string around it and tie the string to his wrist so it couldn’t float away.</p><p>
  <em>Is this the kind of thing you talk to Fire Sages about? </em>
</p><p>She sighed. He furrowed his brow.</p><p>
  <em>Is this the kind of thing I talk to Uncle about? </em>
</p><p>Her eyes were still on the sky, but her head was on his shoulder. Who was melting more?</p><p>
  <em>It’s</em>
</p><p>He brought up her hand, still in his, to his lips.</p><p>
  <em>The kind of thing I talk to her about. </em>
</p><p>And the ground didn’t fall out. Or maybe it did. He wouldn’t have known.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>They were old words. They felt entirely new. Every time he said them he had meant it, but tonight it felt like they had been punctured. Something was leaking. It couldn’t hold everything he wanted it to.</p><p>“Wow, all I said was I like spicy food.”</p><p>She knew he would hear the wink in her voice. She knew he would respond with a scoff or an <em>okay, very funny</em>, or some sarcastic retort of his own. There were more “<em>I Love You”</em>s settled into corners of the palace than dust and dead skin. There were more declarations of love tucked into drawers and resting on shelves than royal decrees, than treaties, than documents of history. There were more looks of earnest adoration shining through his eyes than there had ever been the dull edges of an enemy’s glare. She knew he would respond. He should have responded.</p><p>“Zuko,” she unclasped their hands and moved hers to his back, “I was kidding.”</p><p>She moved her hand across his shoulders, down his back, up again – a circular motion, a familiar motion, a healing motion. She laced her arm around his and set her head to rest back on his shoulder. There were thousands of faraway suns in the sky. Thousands of faraway suns and the sliver of a moon.</p><p>“I love you, you know I love you, I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with you, come on.”</p><p>Sometimes stars fell. Sometimes words did too.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>He sat up and she lifted her head off his shoulder.</p><p>“Been long enough, hasn’t it?”</p><p>She tucked of strand of hair behind his ear.</p><p>“What, uh, what are you saying?”</p><p>He grabbed both her hands together in his.</p><p>“I’m saying what you’re saying,” this time she brought his knuckles up to kiss them, “right?”</p><p>There was nothing new in the air and everything new in the air. The world got smaller. The stars got bigger.</p><p>“Look,” she felt his hands fall as she stood up, “you’ve got a long day tomorrow, <em>I’ve </em>got a long day tomorrow, what else is new?”</p><p>She held out her hand to help him up. Sure, he was a grown man. Sure, he was a grown man and the leader of a sovereign nation. Sure, he was a grown man, the leader of a sovereign nation, whose very hand reaching towards hers had ended a century’s long war and signed peace into law. Sure. But he was also her best friend. He was tired. And she could lend him a hand.</p><p>“Yeah, no, nothing,” he stretched out his back as they sauntered into the hall, “nothing new, definitely should go to sleep. Try… anyway.”</p><p>“I don’t even want to know what time it actually is,” she popped up on her toes and gave him a quick kiss, “I don’t think I’ll need to <em>try</em> to sleep. My head’s gonna hit that pillow and I’m gonna be <em>out</em>.”</p><p>“Don’t let me keep you any longer.”</p><p>There was a certain wink in his voice.</p><p>They could have parted at that. They might have on another night. On another night she would have laughed, turned herself around with a flick of her wrist and a wave, and called out a <em>Good night, your highness</em>. On any other night he would have laughed, then sighed, then groaned all at once, would have put his hands on his hips and half-whined <em>Oh don’t call me that</em>. He would have lingered for a moment just to hear her laugh trickle down the hall like a mountain stream.</p><p>But now they stood, less like seasoned lovers and more like new friends. Confused as to whether they should shake hands, say one more thing, crack one more joke, give a nod, a shrug, wonder if they should hang out again some time, or? Timid hands behind slouched backs.</p><p>“I meant what I said you know,” Katara cut the silence, “about the rest of our lives.”</p><p>For better or worse, she had always meant what she said. Several embittered ministers could tell you so.</p><p>“I know,” so could he, “I know.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>LIES</em>.</p><p>Katara slammed a pillow over her face. Held it there. Hoped it would force her eyes closed, or at least muffle her frustrated groaning.</p><p>
  <em>Just. Go. To. Sleep. It’s. So. Simple. You’ve done it. Every night. Please. </em>
</p><p>She couldn’t close her eyes. If she closed her eyes she would see his face. She would see the way his eyes widened when she had all but basically flat-out proposed. She would see his eyes widen and the three quick blinks he gave her. As if they hadn’t known.</p><p>No, if she closed her eyes she would see his smile. All of his smiles. The small boyish ones that crept up on his blushing face when anyone would compliment him, the broad ones flashed in victory or when running into the arms of old friends. And there were the smirks. He had more smirks than regalia in his possession as Fire Lord. The dry smirks, the shy smirks, the exasperated smirks, the self-satisfied smirks, the smirks that spelled trouble for her morning, noon, and night. She had to keep her eyes open.</p><p>But if she kept her eyes open, she would start to reassemble their history like shards of a broken vase. The day she saw him crowned ruler of the Fire Nation, the day he bowed to her and asked if he could have at least one dance with a real waterbending Master (yes, yes, in front of everyone), the day she first heard his heart in his chest up against her ear – the day she finally saw him for who he was. How different his first appearance in her village had been, and how now the place of her birth was less of a village and more of a city, and how the last time he appeared there it was on her arm. The last time he appeared, her father greeted him like a son. And how could he not? Aside from all the diplomatic bridges the two men had built together, he was the person Katara had chosen, and you could argue with Katara so long as you were gracious in defeat. She had no issue getting people to listen to her. But she always had to <em>get </em>them to listen first. Not with him, not really ever with him. No one hung on her every word quite so much as he did. So much so she had the occasional suspicion he had been writing them all down, collecting her words said aloud and keeping them beside the letters he had saved.</p><p>Zuko was a man she could trust with her life, not just to save it, but also to honor it, hold it in an open palm like a flame and ask how he could keep it burning.</p><p>
  <em>Ah, shit. </em>
</p><p>She threw the pillow off, sat up, and let her face sink down into her hands.</p><p>
  <em>I’m gonna marry that man. </em>
</p><p>Her laugh felt warm in her palms.</p><p>
  <em>I’m gonna marry that man. I’m gonna marry that man! </em>
</p><p>Soon the bedding was on the floor and her face was in the mirror. She pointed at her reflection and it pointed back. They looked at each other with slanted brows and flaring nostrils.</p><p>“<em>I’m</em> gonna marry that man!”</p><p>They broke into simultaneous smiles.</p><p>She paced back and forth in front of the window. Mumbling to herself, giggling like a child, pulling her hair, clutching her hands to her heart and twirling as if in some awful theatrical production of her life. She ran through the entire human emotional experience in the length of her bedroom. There was hardly a moon in the sky but the way her soul was surging, the fact that she couldn’t tell if her feet were touching the ground at all, the way her heartbeat had flooded her entire being, there might as well have been two moons, full moons, three. As many as the stars.</p><p>
  <em>That’s IT. </em>
</p><p>She pummeled a fist into her palm. She felt the tide rising and for a moment felt afraid that she’d wake up to news of the entire harbor being mysteriously flooded overnight.</p><p>
  <em>That’s IT I am gonna marry that bastard. I am going to marry him right now damn it. </em>
</p><p>Cursed was the invisible force that stopped her at her bedroom door. Cursed was the voice that told her to wait until morning. Cursed was the voice that was right. Even if she tried to tell herself she would only be leaving her room to calm down, to stroll in the gardens, or look back out at the stars and the city, she knew she would be lying. She knew she’d march right down the halls as if it were broad daylight, brush past the guards stationed at his door, and knock until he woke up or the door cracked in half. But he had a long day every day, and tomorrow would be no exception. She was in the same boat herself. She knew when he would be up; no matter what time he went to bed, it had to be with the sun. For personal and professional reasons. So, whether she managed to sleep or not, she’d rise with the sun. She’d rise with the sun and then split his door in two. She’d rise with the sun and ask for his hand, ask him to marry her already.</p><p>
  <em>Damn it. </em>
</p><p>__</p><p>
  <em>I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with you.</em>
</p><p>The tea hadn’t cut it. The meditation hadn’t cut it. Lying face down on his pillow and scowling indefinitely hadn’t cut it.</p><p>
  <em>I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with you.</em>
</p><p>It would have taken him no more than five minutes to be at her door.</p><p>
  <em>I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with you. </em>
</p><p>It would take him less if he ran, and he would run. He wanted to run. He wanted to run right through her door, drop down at the foot of her bed, grab her hands in his, and ask her right then and there. Ask her right then and there and then kiss her and kiss her and hold her face in his hands and never let her go. He wanted to catch his heart as it beat out of his chest and bring it to her on a silver platter, feed it to her himself. But she had said they both needed their rest. And she was right. He did <em>need </em>it; technically it was necessary for humans to rest. But how could he even think of resting? How could he possibly think of resting now? He had been asked many impossible things of him during his lifetime, and somehow this seemed like the worst request of them all. Though just because he couldn’t lie down, couldn’t close his eyes, couldn’t think, couldn’t stop thinking, didn’t mean he had cause to subject her to the same sleepless night.</p><p>That’s how Zuko found himself on the streets.</p><p>That’s how Zuko found himself shrouded in black, making little effort to hide his face from the few roaming drunkards who were admittedly too sloshed to give a damn about recognizing him anyway. That’s how Zuko found himself on the streets, shrouded in black, hardly hiding his face, and thinking of hers.</p><p>Everything seemed to slope into silence. Few lamps still flickered inside homes. Shops were shuttered, save for a tavern or two. He’d stopped in to at least one. Took a shot of whatever liquor was cheapest. Left a little too much money for the barkeep. Left with a curt nod and the knowledge that the man behind the counter would go home to whomever he had to go home to with reports of, of, well you’ll never guess who. At least, he imagined he had someone to go home to at whatever hour of the night he was finally free.</p><p>
  <em>I meant what I said… </em>
</p><p>Her eyes had been completely resolute but tinged with the softness she was often so adept at hiding. As though watching a school of fish glide underneath the ice. Those eyes had always been like water in flux. Shifting in between states of matter. It didn’t take much to decipher what she was feeling; one look could give it away and it could, it would change on a whim. After so many years though he had become the foremost expert at determining what else was truly coloring her eyes. After so many years, even underneath anger and exasperation and sorrow, whenever she turned his gaze towards him, there flickered that softness – fish scales in sunlight.</p><p>He didn’t know the barkeep, of course not, but suddenly he wanted very much, hoped quite deeply, that the man had someone to look at him like that. Everyone deserved that. How, he wondered, could he make it law.</p><p>Everyone deserved that. Even he himself, shoving down, drowning out, breathing through doubts and voices too deeply ingrained to ever fully eradicate, deserved it.</p><p>
  <em>I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with you… I meant what I said you know - </em>
</p><p>When the trajectory of his life had been fickle, when he swallowed his birth name and coughed out another, he used to wander the streets of Ba Sing Se at night, alone. Even now as the shape of his world was slowly crystalizing, he felt he was more familiar with them than the streets he walked now, the streets of the city of his birth. Home had never had an easy definition. A place with a roof and walls, a place inhabited by the blood of your blood could feel less like home than a tent and a campfire and a group of friends whose blood had once been nothing more than something to rinse off your hands. It could feel less like a home than a cramped apartment and an old man with a teashop to run and a heart that never shrank in its capacity to love. It could feel less like trembling hands and glowing water and a beautiful young woman stepping off a ship and into her role as Ambassador, and eventually, into his arms.</p><p>Now when he thought of home, it seemed impossible that the same roofs and walls that trapped scorn like a greenhouse and caused him to wither were the same roofs and walls within which he blossomed into a leader, into a man. The structures from within which heralded war now housed the deed to peace. The dark corridors of his youth now kept the sunlight as a chest full of gold. It was no longer the house of his father, but a home he was making. A home that kept him warm. A home that kept her close. It was, he paused under a street lamp, under those same roofs and walls that they would raise their children.</p><p>His footsteps echoed, marking another passing second with each step. How many more steps until the sky behind the mountains would start to glow blue with the light of approaching day. If only there was a way to move the stars, to bring around the sun in the way she could pull the sea to shore.</p><p>
  <em>I meant what I said you know, about the rest of our lives. </em>
</p><p>If his title went to his head, it was rare. But he found himself standing in the middle of the street, arms thrown out, shaking his head at the stars and the endless void behind them, and demanding the day.</p><p>“Come on! Come on! I am your Fire L-“ he was a madman in the streets lacking the patience to greet eternity in its proper time.</p><p>He dropped his arms.</p><p>“I am… I am going to spend the rest of my life with her.”</p><p>His feet kept pulling him forward, down cobblestones, around corners, his arms lazily swinging him around lampposts.</p><p>
  <em>Shit. </em>
</p><p>He let out a laugh that he was afraid had woken someone up. Fine. Let them wake up. Let them rise, pull back their curtains, and see their Fire Lord laughing in the streets like a boy. Let them rub their weary eyes and paint their faces with confusion at the spectacle at this unholy hour. He wanted to knock on every door, wanted to climb up onto the rooftops, point in the direction of the room where she lied asleep, and shout:</p><p>
  <em>I’m going to marry that woman! I’m really going to marry that woman! </em>
</p><p>At some time in his revelry, a baker had begun his daily work. Some time in his revelry, the birds had begun to sense the dawn. Some time in his revelry the sky behind the mountaintops had begun to glow blue with approaching daylight.</p><p>Back home, Katara would soon perhaps be waking, and he wanted to make sure that when she did, he would be right outside her door, finally, only one question on his mind, on his lips and, like the heart he so desperately wanted to gift her rising in his chest with the sun, in the weight of his palms.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Oh <em>why </em>am I not surprised.”</p><p>The initial shock of flinging open the door to find him already standing there settled like dew in her easy laughter.</p><p>“Uh, hi,” the initial shock of having the door flung open just as he was about to knock had yet to wear off, “good morning.”</p><p>“Please tell me you weren’t out here all night.”</p><p>“No,” he couldn’t help but yawn, “I wasn’t.”</p><p>“Good,” she would have been mad at him for not sleeping, mad for thinking she could have opened her door to him all that time, “good. So… um, actually –“</p><p>“I wanted to talk to –“</p><p>“I wanted to talk to you about –“</p><p>“You –“</p><p>“You first,” they blurted out simultaneously, solving nothing.</p><p>Katara had half a mind to close the door and start over.</p><p>Zuko was holding his own hand and rubbing his palm in circles with his thumb. Katara recognized the move from meetings and galas and conversations about his childhood.</p><p>“Go ahead,” he deferred with a slight bow, “please.”</p><p>She felt the weight of the night anchoring into her forehead. She had spent it existing somewhere in between sleep and sheer hyperactivity. She had spent it, looking back, mostly pacing or sprawled out on the floor, determined to ignore her bed, heart lurching every hour the sun got closer. Once the light was peeking through her window she was up, no thought of brushing her hair, no thought of covering up the dark circles under her eyes, no thought of putting on a robe or slippers or doing anything that would impede her further from seeing him. And there he was.</p><p>“You didn’t sleep either,” he was cloaked in black with eyes to match, just as sunken as hers felt, “did you?”</p><p>He shook his head and smirked (a ‘you caught me’ smirk to add to her list).</p><p>When Katara couldn’t have been older than fifteen she had looked the man who murdered her mother in the eyes. Stared him down and spared his life. She had stopped the rain and tasted her heart in her throat. It hadn’t been fear. She didn’t fear him. She didn’t fear herself. It was nearly ten years ago and she considered it perhaps to be the bravest thing she had ever done in her life.</p><p>She didn’t want to call this moment brave. It wasn’t brave. It wasn’t cowardly either but it shouldn’t have taken bravery. This was Zuko. This was the man who had already been at her side so long she started to see him, talk to him, when he wasn’t even there. This was the man who would casually ask how many kids she had always imagined having, and this was the man to whom she would casually answer, oh three, four, watch him choke when she’d say that technically they’d be his heirs, so. This was the man she had loved for years. This was the man she would love forever. This was the man she loved in this moment. She shouldn’t have needed courage to tell him what he already knew. She shouldn’t have needed courage to ask him the question she could see had already formed behind his lips and eyes. She shouldn’t have needed to blush or blink back tears or feel her hands, usually steady as the frozen sea, shake. It was Zuko. It was just Zuko.</p><p>She took a breath in. Tried to lower her heart back behind her ribcage. It seemed to be quite content lodging itself just underneath her mother’s necklace.</p><p>
  <em>It’s just Zuko. </em>
</p><p>“I… I don’t ever want you to leave… I never want to be apart from you… I want you to stay forever, here, forever.”</p><p>If she curled her trembling fingers into a fist, would they still themselves. If she curled her fingers into a fist and squeezed tight like she was learning to sail for the first time, would they still themselves.</p><p>“Katara,” he raised his eyebrow, “I… this is… technically my house.”</p><p>She’d kill him for trying to be funny. Though it would perhaps dampen the matter at hand.</p><p>“Stop. You know what I mean.”</p><p>He broke into a smile and blushed, lowering his eyes. He had been raised for combat; deflection was second nature.</p><p>“It’s just, for so long now, whenever I would imagine… home,” she brought her hand up to the side of his face, sliding her thumb under his eye, across his scarred cheek, "it was your face.”</p><p>She pursed her lips, watched him steel his eyes and swallow.</p><p>“It always will be.”</p><p>He watched her blink into a soft smile.</p><p>“My face?”</p><p>It had always fit perfectly in her hand, and he covered her hand with his, held the part of her holding him. Sank into it.</p><p>“I see.”</p><p>He turned his head to kiss her palm.</p><p>In another lifetime, a man who called himself his father as if it cut his tongue to say it had told him he was lucky to be born. He had spat it in his face and it burned. When his father told him he was lucky to be born, he was telling him he was lucky to still even be alive. He was lucky he had a father who would continue to dredge up the last reserves of his mercy to spare his son’s pathetic life. In another lifetime he had believed him wholeheartedly.</p><p>Now here they were, as they so often found themselves, face to face on the precipice of destiny, a rather funny thing indeed. Now the burgeoning sunlight bled through the doorway and out into the hall, wrapped itself around her body – mocked him in that way. It mimicked what he so often wanted to do to her. It mimicked what she so often let him do to her. The light caressed her, holding on to her so dearly there was no boundary between her and the sun. The sun could die out, fade away, explode, it wouldn’t matter. She didn’t have to walk out of the sun to be a light. She didn’t have to walk out of the sun for her to continuously illuminate the darkest corners of the world for no other reason than to help the troubled see. She didn’t have to walk out of the sun to be a beacon for those searching for truth and warmth and safety. She didn’t have to walk out of the sun to guide him home. Once his father had told him he was lucky to be born. Once he believed it the way his father meant it. But now he realized that even if he meant it as a threat, his words if they remained only words, were correct. He was lucky to be born. He was lucky to be born and alive and standing here, the closest he would come to touching the sun, her hand was warm in his, his face was warm in the light. He was lucky to be born because, despite everything, he had been born at the exact right time and place to know her, to love her, to be with her until the day the universe reclaimed them, turned them back into stardust.</p><p>“Katara I…”</p><p>He knew he was better with words when he was delivering speeches in front of a crowd. He knew he was better with words when he was in costume, with a crown in his hair and a nation at his feet. He knew he was better with words when he could hide behind his title like a boy behind his mother. But there was no costume and there was no title. There were only words that might dribble out like poorly mixed concrete. He wanted to say that <em>I love you </em>wasn’t enough. He wanted to say that there was a feeling in his gut that he wished he could explain to her. He wanted to say that he hoped he didn’t have to explain that feeling because part of that feeling was the feeling that she felt it too, just as much as he did. He wanted to say a lot, or maybe he just wanted her to hear a lot. Maybe she didn’t really need to hear anything more than his heartbeat in the moment. He would have a lifetime after all to draft the proper words.</p><p>“Hi. Hi Zuko.”</p><p>He was beautiful. He was always beautiful. She hoped he could see how beautiful he was by no other means than the way she shook her head and grinned. There was something waiting to be shattered in the silence of the morning, spring ice ready to crack. And maybe she wanted to shatter it herself all at once. Maybe she wanted to say that the way he looked at her made her feel as though there was no one more worthy of being alive. The way he looked at her said she could ask him for a piece of the moon or a stone from the bottom of the sea and he’d bring them to her without hesitation. He’d do it for her if it took a lifetime. It would simply be another item on his agenda. She wanted to reassure him that she would never ask anything he hadn’t already given or couldn’t already give. She would ask for only his love, his respect, his laughter, one day, his children. She would only ever ask for that which she didn’t have to ask at all.</p><p>All she had said in so many words was don’t leave me, you’re home. And all he’d wanted to say in return was that he could never leave without taking her with him. He could never risk losing home now that he’d found one in her. They both knew what it was to wander. Each had at some point been a stranger in a strange land. In this land. Still, they knew what it was to come home. They knew what it was to be a stranger in a strange land but no longer to each other. They hadn’t been strangers for a long time, and they were learning what it was to build a home side by side, step by step.</p><p>“Hm. Alright. Okay,” she had slid her hand out from underneath his, off his face, and ran it through her hair making the light swim through it with her fingers, “Sorry. This was… this went much better in my head last night.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” he put his hands on her shoulders, “it’s just me.”</p><p>And it was just her. And yet he knew she could feel his hands trembling as he moved them down her arms and back to hers. He squeezed them and didn’t know if in fact the gesture was meant to comfort her, or him, or the two of them both.</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>She bit her lip and hoped the cut of her teeth would blunt the sting in her eyes. If only she had done the impossible and slept the night.</p><p>“What for?”</p><p>He moved his thumbs over her knuckles. He laughed but it sounded more like choking on wine.</p><p>She laughed, and it was birthed in a sob.</p><p>“This.”</p><p>
  <em>The crying. </em>
</p><p>If she’d done the impossible and slept, maybe she wouldn’t have been crying. It was a lie with little comfort.</p><p>“Oh,” he cupped her face and wiped away tears as they fell, “no… it’s…”</p><p>He hated tears. He hated his own. He hated that they had to burn. He hated that they leached from his head and made it heavier. He had become accustomed to holding them back, to turning away and hoping that when the night came and he was alone he would be closing dry eyes to the darkness. And he was loath to see her cry. To see her cry, well it knifed him in the gut and sent his insides up in flames. It bled him dry of any strong-willed delusion of self-control. He had no choice but to keep her head on his shoulder and his head resting on hers. He had no choice but to let himself dissolve with her.</p><p>“What’s going on,” she giggled through decidedly, wholly unromantic snot, “we’re <em>adults </em>why are we <em>crying</em>?”</p><p>He sniffled and she didn’t have to look, she could hear his faint grin.</p><p>“We’re adults but we’re so, so, sleep deprived.”</p><p>It felt good to laugh. It felt right to laugh. In laughter, the universe didn’t loom so large around them. In laughter, he was just Zuko and she was just Katara. There was nothing new there.</p><p>They broke apart and he guided his hands back to hers, locking them together, feeling pulses in fingertips and palms. They were going to jump together. They were going to let the land fall out from underneath them and plunge into the sea. They were going to take a moment, take a breath, exhale in laughter, and leap.</p><p>Their words were waves coming in to shore, the beginning of one feeding into the end of the other.</p><p>“Marry me -”</p><p>“- I want to marry you.”</p><p>He had a laugh like a struck match and she like rocks in the tide. Laughter still through tears, it was as their life had always been. Contradictions pushing and pulling to form an enduring rhythm. The boy with the flames in his hands and the girl with the tide at her fingertips.</p><p>How long they had taken to breathe fully again, they couldn’t be sure. If not for the fact that the sun was still in its same relative position, it could have been hours. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ears and let his hand linger.</p><p>“You’re sure?”</p><p>Katara rolled her eyes and dropped her shoulders.</p><p>“You’re joking.”</p><p>“I’m just saying, there’s going to be a lot of incoming bullshit,” he sighed, “it’s not too late to go home and marry a nice Water Tribe boy.”</p><p>There was a kick waiting to happen in the soles of her feet and the muscles of her calf, but she held back. She understood. Even though she had seen the glint of approval in her father’s eyes, even though she had received some unsolicited and possibly premature marriage advice from her grandmother, even though her brother had teased her mercilessly for years, long before anything was real or serious, she was as far from that home as she could possibly get. But home had never had one simple definition. It was the ice and it was the sea. It was the air and the earth. She had never had to be among her people to be of them, to fight for them, to call them home. It would be easy in a sense to go back, easy in a sense to marry some nice Southern Water Tribe boy. She could forego the inescapable duties of being Fire Lady, she could escape the public pressure, and the scrutiny, and the gossip. He knew that asking her to marry him was unfortunately about more than just him. He was asking her to dive headfirst into a life that would rarely be private. But, truly, what was new. She had been under the discerning, relentless gaze of the Fire Nation public for years. She had heard the scattered scoffs and the seen people’s faces crumple in disgust to see a waterbender, the Ambassador to the Southern Water Tribe and a Master no less, dripping off the arm of their dear leader. They had had their fair share of misguided, if not still justified, public outbursts, and in time they had both learned to brush judgment and insult off like sweat or rain on their brows. She had never wanted easy and she had never got easy. She wanted him. She had him. It would be hard, immensely hard, downright impossible, to lose the home she came to find in him. She would always be the girl from the Southern Water Tribe and she would always be his. Those things would live side by side in her heart. That in and of itself felt like home.</p><p>“Shut the hell up Zuko.”</p><p>The first time she had kissed him, it was perhaps an accident, as much as a kiss can be accidental. There was a major step forward with an Earth Kingdom representative, and there was a major step forward with a certain Water Tribe Ambassador and a Fire Lord. She had burst through his office doors, they had both cheered for the news, and somewhere along the way his face was in her hands and her lips were on his. He didn’t get stunned into silence as often as he used to. Most of the time he would lace his fingers into her hair and pull her closer. When she pulled away now he was wide-eyed and blinking slowly. Dumbstruck and smiling. Bringing his hand up to his neck as she looped her arms around his waist.</p><p>“Yeah, okay,” he shook his head blinking, “okay, yeah.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“So, uh, we’re,” they would have to start their day soon, “we’re engaged, huh?”</p><p>“Hmm, I don’t know. Now that I think about it, there are a <em>lot </em>of beautiful men back in the Southern Water Tribe.”</p><p>“<em>Very </em>funny.”</p><p>The sun would rise beyond the window, the night’s clothes would be swapped for costumes, the news would break loose, as would all hell. But so long as he had his hands cupping her jaw, thumbs brushing her cheeks, so long as she kept her hands around him, so long as they kept each other close, closed their eyes to the world for the moment for the sake of another kiss, they could successfully pretend that they had stopped the universe and all its time in its tracks. And a kiss was nothing new. Common as the stars in the sky. A thought passed unspoken. This kiss was the one to seal their future, right then and there. The ceremonies and the parties and the oaths and the feasts and the protocols and procedures upon procedures upon procedures would be for the people to have an excuse to talk and their families and friends an excuse to dance and drink together again (oh he could only imagine how his uncle would be reacting to their forthcoming news). This moment was theirs. This moment was one they could have found in a hundred lifetimes over. It was just Zuko. It was just Katara. Two people and two people alone binding themselves to each other as an unassuming world was waking.</p><p>As the universe was in fact still in motion, they did have to let go. But one day soon he wouldn’t have to come to her door and she wouldn’t have to open it to find him there. One day, very soon and on the verge of forever, she would go to bed with moonlight in her eyes and wake up to sunlight in his. And yet, soon was still later, and later wasn’t soon enough.</p><p>Katara slipped away slowly back into the rising sun, slowly back behind her door. Before she closed it she gave him a smirk of her own.</p><p>“Good morning, your highness.”</p><p>She winked and let the door close with a soft click taking most of the sun with her.</p><p>“Good morning indeed…”</p><p>He shook his head with her words and the click of her door still ringing in his ears. He didn’t imagine he would be able to concentrate on anything for the rest of the day. Because he had stayed up with the moon and a thousand faraway suns, and because the woman on the other side of that door was going to be his wife. She had meant it. So had he.</p><p>
  <em>I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with you. </em>
</p><p>They had leapt together towards the sea, and maybe they would spend their whole lives in the plummet. But they would spend it together, hand in hand. They would spend it holding each other close and calling it home.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hi hello, I am really In My Feelings, are you? </p><p>As I think I said in the tags this is ~loosely~ based on a scene from Anna Karenina because let's face it Katara and Zuko's relationship has all the beats of a classic literary romance. I'll say it once and I'll say it a million more times, Jane Austen would have made Zutara canon. </p><p>The title is from the song Far From the Home I Love from Fiddler on the Roof (it's a beautiful song give it a listen it's... pretty apt) (also hehehe I've done it, I've fused ever so slightly two of my favorite pieces of work ever) </p><p>I loved writing this piece even though it tore me to absolute emotional SHREDS! Like Jesus Freaking Christ the idea of home is just...... it's just *clenches fist* it's just........ </p><p>Let them be soft with each other :'^} I love them :'^}</p><p>Anywho, as always thanks for reading and as always big thanks to my friends who are equally as emotionally invested in this world of our creation. </p><p>Oh and thanks to Gregory Alan Isakov (as if I know him personally lmaoooo) for providing the soundtrack to my writing process and also this piece more or less (look, listen, if you've never heard his music go, go right now, go listen to That Moon Song, Second Chances, and The Moon was Red and Dangerous. Listen to those at the VERY least, you'll thank yourself for doing it. It's...... it's got the stuff, babee)</p>
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